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Old 21-03-2008, 01:03   #1563
AlexanderHanff
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Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

Birmingham Post article:
http://www.birminghampost.net/birmin...5233-20637539/

Here is my email to the author:

Hi Chris,

First I wanted to thank you for bringing this story to the people of Birmingham (and your internet readership of course), it is a vital issue of civil liberties that everyone should be made aware of.

However, whereas the article was quite amusing and light reading (which is a good thing given the week we have had) it did fail to mention some critical points which your readership should know about.

Firstly, given the situation with regards to Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and unlawful interception of communications, I feel it is of critical importance your readers should be aware of how Phorm stands with regards to RIPA. RIPA states very clearly that all parties in a communication must give their consent before interception of a communication is lawful. In the case of someone browsing the Internet, this would include the person doing the browsing and the organisation or individual (publisher) who's web site is being read. That said, this system could never be legal as current UK law stands and in fact would be a criminal offence.

This leads us on to the serious implications this has for users who "Opt In" by accepting new Terms and Conditions. Since it would be a criminal offence to intercept the communication without the consent of the "publisher" if a customer was to initiate a communication with a website that has not given it's consent to the interception, they could be liable for criminal action as they may be classed as complicit for initiating a communication they know is going to be intercepted (illegally).

Furthermore, it is in the interests of your readers to note that the government think tank for policy on privacy (Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR)) have stated in an Open Letter to the Information Commissioner that this technology is illegal in the UK under RIPA.

I think it is also in the interests of your readers to know that BT secretly trialled this technology in June 2007 without even attempting to obtain consent and when questions were asked when people noticed strange behaviours with their Internet connections, BT categorically denied any responsibility and advised their customers it must be spyware. In documents leaked from BT this week and a subsequent statement from BT, it has been confirmed that this secret test was actually being carried out. This raises very serious concerns into whether or not BT acted in a criminal fashion under RIPA. At face value it would seem that this is in fact the case given that even the non-authoritative response from the Home Office last week (which has been heavily criticised for being inaccurate in its interpretation of consent on behalf of the "publisher") clearly states that consent must be sought in order for the interception to be lawful. Again this is reiterated by FIPR.

If this is the case (which I firmly believe it is) then we have a clear example of why we need to protect these liberties in the first place. If criminal law is not enough to stop a corporation which in reality has enough money to pay for top legal advice, then where does this betrayal of our privacy rights end? Lets not forget this is also a Human Rights issue given our rights to privacy in our private lives and communications.

Some more sinister consequences of this system with regards to shared computers are outlined below.

One example is domestic abuse. Say for example a female victim of domestic abuse is searching for support groups or information about leaving her husband/partner and this happens to get picked up by the profiler because the sites she is looking at are not on the "blacklist". She spends several days doing this whilst her husband/partner is at work, then one night he logs on and starts browsing the net. He happens upon a site which is using the OIX advertising platform and sees ads related to his partner's/wife's recent browsing habits. We could potentially see tragic consequences, even deaths as a result of severe violent reactions to the discovery.

Other examples are child abuse victims, people with medical conditions they have kept hidden from the family etc. Even less "serious" scenarios where one's partner is looking for a birthday gift for you and you happen to use the computer after a profile has been built up could lead to upsetting consequences.

There is a lot that really doesn't seem to have been thought of when assessing the impact this technology could have on the more vulnerable members of our society and it simply must be stopped at all costs.

In closing, I thank you again for bringing this issue to the people of Birmingham and hope you consider the points I have raised above for any future article you choose to write on this issue.

Sincerely,

Alexander Hanff
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